[chia-pet]

When I had an alcohol-related mandatory suicide counseling at school, I was deemed well-adjusted and grounded by my therapist from the get-go. With suicide off the table, we talked about dreams to fill the required sessions. So I printed out some of the dreams I typed out. My therapist told me it was highly unusual how 1.) much I remembered from them and 2.) how much meticulous detail were in them.

Some strange dream phenomena I've had in the past:

1.) I've had some dreams come true before. These aren't really dreams, they're very detailed snapshots. My dreams are always in movie-like full motion, except on occasion when I have these strange "snapshot" dreams. Well within days I'll live out the "snapshot"--like I'll go to a cafe I've never been to and will literally be seeing the exact image I dreamt.

2.) I used to have dreams that were so vivid, so real, that when I woke up reality felt like the dream. The dreams were so real that they superseded reality! Walking around the UW campus, I'd feel like I was floating outside of my body. What's even more bizzare is when I was taking heritage Mandarin Chinese (tough for a non-native Chinese speaker) at UW, I took an oral midterm in this reality-is-a-dream state and scored a 94/100. The thing is I'm absolutely terrible at speaking Mandarin Chinese. My other oral exams before and after this were in the low 60's (my written performance is the only thing that keeps me in good standing).

Anyway onto the question.

About a year ago I stopped having vivid dreams after meeting my fiance-to-be. Before I met her, every night was like a feature film in my head, but after, it was complete blankness every night. (Perhaps I dreamt but could no longer remember them?) But just recently I've started having super vivid, detailed dreams again. Anyone have any idea what this could mean?

Don't get me wrong, I love dreaming. It makes sleeping a lot more interesting. I just wanna know why a person would stop dreaming and then start again.

 

[trains are bad]

I'm a kick-ass dreamer. It's probably my favorite hobby. I can decide what I want to dream about, do it, and remember it. I given the right mood, during the day I can enter a sleep state, have a pretty nice dream, and wake up about ten minutes later. I also almost never have nightmares, because I have control.

Sleeping is hard, though. I go through periods where my sleep isn't really going well, and it's boring and depressing.

Believe it or not, one of my main studying strategies involves sleep. I either study right before I go to bed, or even better, cram a little bit, doze for about 20 minutes, cram a little bit, doze for about 10 minutes and so on. I have accomplished amazing feats of speed learning and perfect retention using this method.

The disadvantages, is that I tend to sleep 12 hours if I have the time. Also, I constantly accomplish things is my dreams, and then realize that reality sucks ass. Like I'll totally learn something on my bike, or solve a physics problem that is haunting me. Totally solve it. Then realize that I haven't gotten anywhere with it in the waking world, which is very depressing.
Also, twice I have had panic attacks where I thought I was dreaming but wasn't, or at least I was dream-walking. One of them was embarassing as it was in public. And both of them were triggered by looking at analog clock faces.

 

[zotjen]

I don't think anyone stops dreaming. You probably just don't remember them. For example, I don't remember any dreams last night but the other night I had a dream where I was in Japan and there was some sort of eating contest going on. At one point this giant squid was brought out and sliced open. All these huge spiders started crawling out and everyone started grabbing them and eating them. A man was then forced to eat his pet gerbil-like rodent.

 

[digitalmind]

I never dream, or atleast, I never seem to remember it. The only times that I do dream, is in VERY busy/stressed periods, and then my dreams are just total chaos. I have sleepwalked a couple of times, including actually going downstairs to do something which I can't remember. Did something unexpected happen lately? That could trigger dreams, or atleast, it seems to do so in my case.

When you say you're seeing something you've dreamt, are you able to tell from your dream what will happen next? I often see things I think I've seen somewhere before, but they are just dejavu's, even if they feel very, very strong and long.

 

[Possede]

Quote:

Originally Posted by chia-pet I've had some dreams come true before.

I used to have this all the time. For example when I was in Primary, I had a dream that I sat in my classroom, but I was getting taught by a different teacher. We later went on to do some sort of test, related to what we had been doing previously.
So when I went to School the next morning, it was interesting to find out my normal teacher was ill and we were taught and tested on by the teacher I dreamt the night before. And this is the wierd part... I had even remember small parts of the questions from my dream.
From then on I usually had vivid "snapshots" of certain situations, and people that I had never seen before. The snapshots were almost always included in the next days routine. I never thought much of it.
Though since I started Secondary School I haven't had many, if not none of these dreams.

 

[chia-pet]

Quote:

Originally Posted by trains are bad The disadvantages, is that I tend to sleep 12 hours if I have the time. Also, I constantly accomplish things is my dreams, and then realize that reality sucks ass. Like I'll totally learn something on my bike, or solve a physics problem that is haunting me. Totally solve it. Then realize that I haven't gotten anywhere with it in the waking world, which is very depressing. Also, twice I have had panic attacks where I thought I was dreaming but wasn't, or at least I was dream-walking. One of them was embarassing as it was in public. And both of them were triggered by looking at analog clock faces.

I sleep a lot too if I'm having vivid (not to be confused with lucid) dreams!

 

[chia-pet]

Quote:

Originally Posted by zotjen I don't think anyone stops dreaming. You probably just don't remember them. For example, I don't remember any dreams last night but the other night I had a dream where I was in Japan and there was some sort of eating contest going on. At one point this giant squid was brought out and sliced open. All these huge spiders started crawling out and everyone started grabbing them and eating them. A man was then forced to eat his pet gerbil-like rodent.

Yes I think I've read something along similar lines. But for me it's unusual, because I have really high retention of dreams, and they usually have great, great detail. I stated before that my therapist told me it was unusual. It seems more reasonable to assume that I stopped dreaming, or having dreams compelling enough to remember, rather than just not being able to remember them... And if my memory did go away for a year, it came back so suddenly!

And haha your dreams are crazy.

 

[chia-pet]

Quote:

Originally Posted by digitalmind When you say you're seeing something you've dreamt, are you able to tell from your dream what will happen next? I often see things I think I've seen somewhere before, but they are just dejavu's, even if they feel very, very strong and long.

I'm unable to tell in my dream what will happen next, because the dream is just a still image. But just about every time I have one of these unusual "dreams" they comes true.

(My regular dreams are normally in motion like a movie, these dreams that come true for me are only photographic snapshots.)

Once I had this dream about being inside a warehouse I had never seen, looking toward a garage door. A few weeks later, I applied for a summer airline catoring job and got the job, While working, that single instance (the snapshot I dreamt) came true. I found myself standing there, looking at the exact image I had dreamt--supplies stacked up all along the wall, staring out to the same garage door. This only happens to me when I have these "still image" dreams, and when I have one, I'm almost positive it's going to "come true."

Another snapshot image I dreamt was from a laying down perspective looking up. I saw these white hanging circular lights on the ceiling. It was a still image, so I knew it was going to come true. So I tell one of my best friends about it, and she's like "uhhh ok." Well turns out, 2 days later I was at a party and accidentally drank a fifth of rum and a bunch of everclear. I started puking up blood, so an ambulence was called and took me away. And while being carted through the hospital corridors, I saw the white lights hanging above me. My friend saw the lights too, and she was freaked out that the dream had come true...

 

[chia-pet]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Possédé I used to have this all the time. For example when I was in Primary, I had a dream that I sat in my classroom, but I was getting taught by a different teacher. We later went on to do some sort of test, related to what we had been doing previously. So when I went to School the next morning, it was interesting to find out my normal teacher was ill and we were taught and tested on by the teacher I dreamt the night before. And this is the wierd part... I had even remember small parts of the questions from my dream. From then on I usually had vivid "snapshots" of certain situations, and people that I had never seen before. The snapshots were almost always included in the next days routine. I never thought much of it. Though since I started Secondary School I haven't had many, if not none of these dreams.

Very interesting! I've never met another person who had "snapshot" dreams that come true. Good to know I'm not alone.

Sorry about the multple posts. I just to just hit the quote button out of convenience instead of copying, pasting, and typing the person's name who posted in one big long post. As you can see from my low post count, I don't care about post-count-whoring it up.